


A bad day

by travellinghopefully



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humour, Kitten, Snuggling, Tooth Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 06:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5081771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/travellinghopefully/pseuds/travellinghopefully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I really suck at titles and summaries - so hello all 300 tumblr followers *waves wildly* - a quick bit of fluffy fluffiness to offset the general angst</p><p>Inspired by a fabulous blog @petercapaldiimagines and a comment by @lornesgoldenhair</p><p>Clara has a bad day at school, she goes home - really, that's it, that's the story, but fluffy and funny</p>
            </blockquote>





	A bad day

It had been a monumentally bad day, truly, utterly, appalling. OFSTED and not the shred of a lesson plan.

Something she entirely blamed the Doctor for, going to the market, it’ll only take a few hours, it’ll be fun. No mention at all of fire breathing dragons. She entirely discounted his point that if she hadn’t taken her bag (what did she need a bag for? Men – honestly) and if she hadn’t had her paperwork in the bag.....And surely she had backed up her documentation? 

She had been going to fob her students off with silent reading, essay writing and “research” on the internet – but no, she had to improvise 5 lessons that showed: use of strategies and tasks to engage pupils; use of assessment in planning; level of challenge; use of teaching assistants (what teaching assistants?); opportunities to develop reading and writing skills, pace and depth of learning, use of questioning; assessing learning during lessons. All of those were fine, but all of them in one lesson, challenging, all of them in five lessons, with Courtney..... Oh, and all the subject specific stuff, the English, the literature, the things she actually liked...

She wasn’t sure she could put her finger on the exact point that it all began to unravel. Courtney talking about the trip to the moon? Maebh and just about everything? Evie Hubbard and her selfie with Churchill? Leaving all of the Year 7 exercise books in the TARDIS? She was lucky she only received one unsatisfactory. She pondered the intricacies of enlisting UNIT or inveigling the Doctor into giving her a do-over. She knew he couldn’t or wouldn’t, he would look affronted and spout things about rules, but just once, she would like time travel to have useful, practical, every day applications. 

Then there was the student teacher who opened a door into her face as she walked down the corridor. She avoided serious injury, but ended up wearing her lunch rather than eating it. Her favourite cardigan may never recover. This was hardly the professional image she aimed to project (not a control freak) and the moment when her A-level student plucked a stray strand of spaghetti from her shoulder at the end of the final lesson – just the icing on the cake. She didn’t wish for the ground to open up and swallow her, just in case it actually happened. There hadn’t even been spaghetti in her lunch. 

It rained.

Her bike refused to start. Roadside assistance claimed they would take 2 hours to reach her. The Doctor was not answering his phone. She decided to walk. The heel of her boots (her favourite boots) snapped off. 

She was cursed. That was the simple answer, perfectly logical, she was cursed.

Her mood by the time she reached home was verging on homicidal. Icy water had penetrated every last layer of her clothing and icy trickles were reaching places she didn’t want to contemplate. As she stomped up the stairs, she’d already shed her boots and was unfastening everything else. Just let Mr Jackson from 13a pick today to complain, just let him. Tearing a strip off someone would vastly improve her mood. She smiled, savagely.

She opened her front door, or attempted to. The resulting gap was just wide enough for her to squeeze through (no more comments about her hips thank you very much). Clara had, had words about parking the TARDIS in her bedroom, that conversation had not gone as she had planned. And it certainly hadn’t achieved the desired result if she now couldn’t get through her own front door. Something snagged on the door as she squeezed through, one button popped off and there was the distinct sound of ripping. She was going to have more words, lots of them, short ones, there would be pointing, and based on her current thoughts, considerable violence.

Not quite thinking things through, Clara stripped off the remainder of her clothes and dropped them on the hall floor. They squelched, she scowled, she slipped, she swore eloquently and vociferously.

She looked round for her cat, Aurelius. The naming debate had lasted many weeks, the Doctor appeared to call the kitten, “NO!” and he accused her of calling him “SQUEEEEE!”. His impersonation of her was surprisingly accurate but repeated too frequently, until she threatened to slap him until he regenerated. Aurelius was a dignified name for her adorable, grey bundle of cuddly fluff, do not say that out loud, or face subjecting yourself to a) merciless teasing, b) visit to planets of grey fluffy things c) watch him pout again d) argue with him about the pouting. He hadn’t explicitly stated that there was only room in her life for one adorable, dignified, fluffy, cuddly, grey, handsome thing, but it was implied, oh, it was implied. Aurelius appeared well aware of this and had conveniently left a hairball in the Doctor’s shoes, furred several of his jackets and used his guitar as a scratching post (the Doctor hadn’t noticed that yet, and his joke about repurposing Aurelius as mittens might well be portentous when the deed was discovered.) She rattled his treat box, no answering thunder of tiny paws. How could something tiny make so much noise, when she had first uttered that, the Doctor had looked her up and down, blinked, opened and closed his mouth and had a rare moment of not saying exactly what he was thinking. Maybe the cards were helping?

Realisation dawned and she reviewed the wisdom of walking round her flat in her underwear when the Doctor was lurking, somewhere. He could of course be in the TARDIS, but invariably he was in her kitchen, eating her biscuits, and then lamenting the lack of subsequent biscuits. How could he eat so many sweet things and be so thin? She had walked into the Doctor in her underwear just once previously, she mostly repressed the memory, but two key images remained, his eyebrows had merged with his hair and his skin had turned the same shade as the lining of his jacket. She had said nothing, he had said nothing, they were exceptional at saying nothing. She found her very warm but exceedingly unflattering dressing gown (a gift from her gran).

No Doctor or her cat in the kitchen, no Doctor or her cat in the bedroom, no Doctor or her cat in the bathroom. OK, this was starting to sound like a very limited children’s story. She just wanted a long hot bath, a take away, some wine, it was Friday (the one good thing about today) and she wasn’t going to count the glasses, in fact she considered putting a straw in the bottle – an entirely practical and effective solution. She wanted an early night. Whatever the Doctor suggested, she was immune. The furthest distance she was travelling was to her sofa.

Oh, this! This! It was just too good! Clara rummaged in her bag as rapidly as she could. Finally, she found her phone. Video or photos? Video, she could extract images later. The Doctor was reclining on her sofa, snoring softly (superior Time Lord physiology – pah). He had kicked off his boots revealing frankly hideous lime green socks with pink ice cream cones on them, or rhinos, whatever – hideous. Aurelius was sprawled on the Doctor’s chest, his paws waving in the air, whilst emitting extraordinarily loud purrs. Clara wasn’t sure whether she was furious that the Doctor had subverted her cat, or whether she should just give into the overwhelming cuteness of the situation, or the innate hilarity of cat naps...She texted Kate, and attached the video, it was only fair.

There was definitely a Clara sized space remaining on the sofa. Sleep now, everything else later. She wriggled until she was comfortable, draping the Doctor’s free arm around her and resting her hand by her kitten, which of course meant it was on the Doctor’s chest. She felt the steady rhythm of his heartbeats under her fingertips, she listened to the mingled snores and purrs and she fell almost instantly asleep.

The Doctor’s eyes opened, he smiled and tightened his arm round Clara, pulling her more snugly against him. He would have glared at Aurelius, but the kitten had chosen that precise moment to contemplate the extended claws of one paw, said paw being remarkably close to the tip of the Doctor’s nose. The Doctor decided to close his eyes and make the best of it. He may have moved just enough to ensure Clara was nestled under his chin and his nose was buried in her hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time, I was a teacher, I am still scarred - "*)$&)£##^!"" OFSTED. So the old joke, what's the difference between a plastic surgeon and an OFSTED Inspector? One tucks up features.....
> 
> And, if you hated this - tell me
> 
> If you loved this - please tell me (still a comment whore)
> 
> If you really loved this - please share
> 
> And, honestly, I'm still working on the other fics, on really....would I lie to you?


End file.
